Love Letter
by Spontaneous Combusken
Summary: YukariNyamo. “...she was just a normal student, I guess.” For some reason, Tomo doesn't believe her. Who was that letter for, anyway? Shoujo–ai.


As promised, here's my take on the whole "love letter" scenario. With a smidge of artistic licence.  
I've nicked the layout for this from the amazingly wonderful 'Nyamo and the Fight' by Miss Prince. I love that fic – go read it if you haven't already.

**Love Letter**

"…So what kind of a student was Miss Yukari at school?" Tomo asked eagerly.

Minamo grinned mischievously. It wasn't in her nature to be evil, but it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get her best friend back for all the times she had deliberately annoyed and embarrassed her – often in front of students – and she knew that some of the stories she had about her best friend were just too good to keep secret forever.

"So many stories!" Minamo giggled, trying to think of the best one to tell. Which was pretty hard because there were a _lot_.

"Love letter!" came a singing voice from along the school corridor. "L-l-l-love letter!"

Minamo froze as Yukari skipped past. The words "love letter" were enough to make her cease any thoughts of telling the students about Yukari's high school antics because she knew the slightly psychotic English teacher wouldn't hesitate to make her most secret secret public knowledge.

"Nyamo?" Tomo asked, poking the gym teacher.

"She was… just a normal student, I guess." Minamo said through gritted teeth, glaring after her fellow teacher, too annoyed to realize that nobody would ever believe that Yukari was a normal anything.

"I'll bet Yukari has something on her." Yomi said while Minamo glared.

"A love letter, eh?" Tomo grinned. Oh, this was gong to be _good_. She poked Minamo again to get her attention. "What love letter was Yukari on about?"

Tomo struggled not to laugh at the shade of pink that Minamo blushed. "N-nothing. It's nothing." Minamo stuttered unconvincingly before practically running away.

Yomi sighed and looked down at her shorter friend, who was cackling with evilness.

This wasn't going to end well.

* * *

_A sixteen-year-old Minamo Kurosawa tiptoed around the corner of the corridor and over to the whole wall of lockers as quietly as she could. She had deliberately woken early on the morning of February fourteenth, hoping to get into school early, before it became crowded, making it impossible to slip her carefully-prepared note into her crush's locker without being seen. All the advance preparation had paid off; with the exception of a few teachers in their classrooms preparing the day's lessons, the school was deserted. Minamo looked around carefully, checking one final time to see if anyone was looking and, seeing nobody, she dashed forward, opened the locker, placed her note inside and shut it quickly, giggling slightly from a strange mix of embarrassment and nervousness. Casting a final glance in the direction of the locker, she ran off, still hoping against hope that nobody had seen her. _

* * *

Tomo sighed. She had hoped to ask Yukari about the letter during her next English class, but the teacher had stormed in, scribbled some work for them to do on the board and then fallen asleep on her desk. 

Nevertheless, once the bell had rung, both signalling the end of the lesson and waking Yukari up, Tomo told Yomi she'd catch her up and wandered over to the English teacher's desk.

"Yukari?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"What love letter were you talking about with Miss Kurosawa earlier?"

Tomo was never sure what kind of response to expect from the teacher; Osaka had received only "Oh, shut up!" as a reply after Tomo had persuaded her to ask Yukari to elaborate on her alleged 'date' with Minamo, yet Tomo had been nearly killed on many occasions from prying too deeply into her teacher's personal lives.

To her surprise, Yukari burst out laughing.

"What is it?" Tomo asked eagerly.

Yukari wiped tears from her eyes. "I'm not gonna tell you. It's just something that happened back in high school that happens to be the best blackmail material in the world where Nyamo's concerned."

"What?" Tomo whined, clearly disappointed.

Yukari glared. "I'm not telling you. She'd kill me if I did."

"Fine…" Tomo sighed, exiting the classroom.

* * *

_It was turning out to be a very confusing day for Yukari. Her best friend Minamo had been acting jumpy and weird all day and it was beginning to get annoying. It was her job to be the strange one out of the two, but Minamo had spent the day with a deer-in-the-headlights look, practically jumping out of her seat whenever Yukari tried talking to her._

_"Nyamo?" Yukari asked during their classics lesson._

_"Y-yes?" Minamo spluttered, stopping fiddling with her fingers and looking rather flushed._

_"What the hell is it with you today?" Yukari asked, narrowing her eyes._

_Minamo briefly marvelled at her friend's obliviousness, but soon resumed her heavy blushing. "I'm… not feeling all that well." She said. It wasn't a complete lie; she felt so nervous she could be sick._

_"You look really flushed." Yukari commented. Minamo blushed further._

_"I'm okay… though hopefully I'll feel a little better later."_

* * *

"So, did you find anything out?" Yomi asked as Tomo sat down in the school cafeteria with her tray, joining her, Kagura, Sakaki, Chiyo and Osaka at the table. 

"Find what out?" Tomo asked innocently.

"Give it up, already," Yomi sighed, "you couldn't make it more obvious that you're trying to find out about that 'love letter' thing that Yukari was singing about earlier if you tried."

"Oh." Tomo should have been used to Yomi's ability to read her perfectly, but she wasn't. "I didn't get much." Tomo said, looking a little disappointed.

"What'd she say?" Yomi asked, disbelieving that the teacher would tell her anything.

"She didn't. She just said it was something from their high school days. She didn't tell me if it was for her or not."

Yomi rolled her eyes. "Well, I doubt even Yukari would tell you outright if it was."

Tomo folded her arms across her chest and huffed. "I don't get why they're being so secretive about this. It's not like anyone really cares if they're together or not."

Yomi couldn't bring herself to do anything other than stare.

_

* * *

Minamo was feeling nauseous with nervousness now. She knew she shouldn't be so scared; after all she and Yukari had been through together, she knew Yukari wouldn't leave her, even if she didn't feel the same way. _

_The class had P.E. next, which would require them getting their gym clothes out of their lockers. Minamo thought of the letter in Yukari's locker. Writing wasn't Minamo's strong point; her best friend was much better with words than she was, but she had spent nearly every night during the last few weeks trying to condense her feelings into a single letter. It was finally complete and Minamo was satisfied with it, getting up early especially to slip it into her friend's locker. _

_Only now the moment had come. She struggled to keep still as she saw Yukari moving towards her locker, opening it, peering inside…_

* * *

"So what do you guys think?" Tomo asked. The five other girls looked a little uncomfortable at discussing their teacher's personal lives, but Tomo didn't care. 

"It doesn't matter so long as they're both happy, right?" Chiyo said uncertainly.

"Who cares if they're together or not? They're still our teachers… they'd never tell us anyways." Kagura said.

"Why do you care about this so much, anyway?" Yomi asked, her eyes narrowing. "How can you have time to focus on everyone else's relationships?"

Tomo paused for a fraction of a second before replying with a huge grin, "As a future ICPO officer, it's my duty to investigate things!"

"What exactly is it that you're investigating?" Sakaki asked.

Tomo's eyes darted around the near-empty cafeteria before leaning forward. "If there's more to that 'love letter' story Yukari hinted about this morning than she told us." She whispered dramatically.

"Of course there's more - they didn't tell us anything!" Yomi pointed out. "And for good reason; it's their personal business!"

"Well, you asked Yukari earlier, didn't you?" Kagura asked. "What did she say then?"

"She just said it was something from their high school days. I didn't get anything about who it was for or anything interesting."

"But it must'a been for anotha' girl." Osaka said dreamily.

All five pairs of eyes were on her. "What makes you say that?" Yomi asked.

"When they went here, it was an all-girl's school, wasn't it? An' if she said it was from when they were in high school…"

"Hah!" Tomo laughed triumphantly. "Osaka, you're a genius!"

_

* * *

Yukari opened her locker, took out her gym clothes, shut the door and noticed Minamo staring at her expectantly. _

"_What is it?" Yukari asked. Minamo was silent, wondering what had gone wrong. _

"_What's this?" came a voice from beside them. Sayuri, a girl from their gym class with a locker one left of Yukari's took a small, carefully sealed envelope from her locker and looked at it in confusion. _

_Minamo felt her heart stop. _

"_Someone's written you a valentine's letter!" Somebody said loudly. The entire class' eyes were now fixed on Minamo's wrongly-delivered letter. _

"_What's it say?"_

"_Who's it from?"_

_The questions became noise to Minamo, swirling her around in her state of disbelief, embarrassment and nervousness. She didn't know what to do, so in a moment of blind panic, she snatched the letter from the other girl and ran out of the locker room, blushing furiously. _

* * *

It was lunchtime and Yukari had once again fallen asleep on her desk. She was happily and loudly snoring away when her classroom door was wrenched open loudly, causing her to stir. 

"Yukari…" Minamo's angry voice came from above her. Yukari blinked sleepily and looked up into a pair of very annoyed-looking gray eyes.

"What is it?" Yukari mumbled.

"Why did you have to mention _that_ in front of the students this morning?" Minamo asked angrily. "In front of Tomo, no less!"

"Mention what?" Yukari asked groggily, glaring up at he gym teacher.

Minamo blushed furiously. "_You know what._" she hissed.

Still not fully awake, Yukari defended herself. "Well, you would have told them stuff about me if I hadn't!"

"You do realize that if you tell them about it, you'll have to tell them about _us_, too?"

"I know that! Why are you making such a big deal out of this, Nyamo?"

"Because you spoke about it in front of the students!" Minamo sighed. "I bet Tomo's already asked you the details of what happened."

"And if she did?"

"What did you tell her, Yukari?" Minamo's voice took on a dangerous edge.

"I didn't tell her anything!" Yukari shouted. "It's pretty much the only blackmail I have on you; I'm not gonna waste it on something like Tomo!"

"Hey!" came Tomo's insulted voice from the door.

Yomi glared at her friend as both teachers stared at them in the doorway.

It didn't take long for Yukari to find Minamo. She found her friend up on the roof, looking more depressed than Yukari had ever seen her, clutching the letter to her chest.

* * *

"_You and Sayuri?" Yukari said, "I'd never have guessed."_

"_W-what?" Minamo spluttered. "What are you talking about?"_

"_It'd explain why you've been acting weird all day…"_

"_It wasn't for her!" Minamo said loudly, cutting her off, though unable to meet her eyes. If she had, she would have seen Yukari look a little relieved. _

"_Then who-"_

_Minamo was too nervous to answer vocally, so she just extended her hand and handed the envelope to her friend. Yukari took it, opened it and read it silently. _

_Minamo watched nervously._

_Finally Yukari finished reading the note. It was the most beautiful, wonderful, heart-wrenching thing she had ever read. _

_So she burst out laughing. _

"_Hahaha! Nyamo, you moron!"_

"_W-what?" Minamo spluttered in disbelief. _

"_You…" Yukari was having difficulty talking through her laughter, "You must've spent **days** on this!"_

"So?" Minamo defended, feeling totally confused and very embarrassed.

"_And I bet you came in early especially to put it in my locker, too!"_

"_Y-yeah…" Minamo felt near tears now. _

"_And you've been a nervous wreck all day because you didn't know how I'd react when I read it…"_

"_I didn't expect this." Minamo said quietly and bitterly._

"_And after all that, you put it in the wrong locker! The wrong locker!"_

_Minamo couldn't take much more. "Look Yukari; I'm sorry I screwed up. I'm sorry I wrote that thing in the first place… I guess just wanted to tell you, but I don't mind that you don't-"_

_Minamo stopped when she realized that Yukari wasn't laughing any more. "I don't what?" she asked. _

_Minamo avoided her friend's eyes and tried to speak without her voice cracking. "…Don't feel the same. Honestly, it's okay; having you as my fr-"_

_Minamo mumbled the rest of the sentence onto Yukari's lips before she realized they were even there. Once she did, she gasped and reached up to put her hands on Yukari's shoulders. After a moment, they broke apart. _

"_Wha…?" Minamo tried to formulate a coherent sentence, but failed. Luckily, as always, Yukari's mouth was working just fine. _

"_Hey; just because you're a moron doesn't mean I don't feel the same."_

"_But you laughed at me!" _

"_That's because you spent days making that letter and then put it in the wrong locker! It's hilarious!"_

"_Yukari," Minamo said in exasperation, " you are the most-"_

_Again, Minamo's words were cut off by Yukari's lips pressing against hers. _

* * *

There were a few seconds of hugely uncomfortable silence between the two teachers and two students. Finally Yukari screamed "TOMO!", harshly breaking the silence, but not making the situation any more comfortable for anyone. 

"Yukari…" Minamo said through gritted teeth, staring at the floor.

"All right, you nosy bastards; how much did you hear?" Yukari demanded.

The girls looked terrified of the sight of the furious English teacher advancing on them.

"We, um, only just came along when you said about Tomo not being worth it." Yomi said guiltily. The teachers might have believed her, but Tomo just couldn't keep her mouth shut.

"What did you mean 'we'll have to tell them about us'?" Tomo asked, "are you two a couple?"

Minamo wasn't sure whether she should try and deny it or restrain Yukari so she wouldn't kill the loudmouth student. Her decision-making was interrupted by Yukari.

"So what if we are?" Yukari asked. All three pairs of eyes stared at her in disbelief.

"Yukari…" Minamo started, moving towards her friend.

"Because it doesn't matter to you either way, because it's not gonna stop me from kicking your nosy ass!" the English teacher yelled, chasing after Tomo, armed with a very heavy-looking English textbook.

_

* * *

Eventually they drew apart, Minamo unable to believe she was skipping P.E. and making out with her best friend on the school roof. One look in Yukari's eyes, however, and all her worries dissolved. It felt strange; the one person in her life who caused her the most stress and worry could also make her feel so at peace. _

_"I really like you too, Nyamo." Yukari said sincerely. "**And** I know where your locker is."

* * *

_

Hearing the screams and yells from down the corridor, Yomi and Minamo looked at each other, neither having the energy to go and stop whatever fight was going on between the teacher and student. Instead, they smiled wearily at one another in unspoken agreement.

_'Girlfriends…'_

**The End**

**  
**

Yup, I put in some Tomo/Yomi-ness. I couldn't resist.  
And I'm sorry it's been a while; I've been busy with real life and stuff. Huge thanks go out to everyone who reviews my stuff and/or writes their own Azumanga stuff; I probably would never have gotten this done if it weren't for you.


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